That everything is to be undertaken with circumspection.This fifteenth chapter makes the twenty-ninth of the Enchiridion, but with some varieties of reading. -C.

In every affair consider what precedes and follows,
and then undertake it. Otherwise you will begin
with spirit indeed, careless of the consequences, and
when these are developed, you will shamefully desist.
" I would conquer at the Olympic Games." But consider what precedes and follows, and then, if it be
for your advantage, engage in the affair. You must
conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from dainties; exercise your body, whether you choose it or
not, at a stated hour, in heat and cold; you must
drink no cold water, and sometimes no wine, -in a
word, you must give yourself up to your trainer as
to a physician. Then, in the combat, you may be
thrown into a ditch, dislocate your arm, turn your
ankle, swallow abundance of dust, receive stripes
[for negligence], and, after all, lose the victory.
When you have reckoned up all this, if your incli-
nation still holds, set about the combat. Otherwise,
take notice, you will behave like children who sometimes play wrestlers, sometimes gladiators; sometimes blow a trumpet, and sometimes act a tragedy,
when they happen to have seen and admired these
shows. Thus you too will be at one time a wrestler,
at another a gladiator; now a philosopher, now an
orator; but nothing in earnest. Like an ape you
mimic all you see, and one thing after another is sure
to please you, but is out of favor as soon as it becomes familiar. For you have never entered upon
anything considerately, nor after having surveyed
and tested the whole matter; but carelessly, and with
a half-way zeal. Thus some, when they have seen a
philosopher, and heard a man speaking like Euphrates,Euphrates was a philosopher of Syria, whose character
is described, with the highest encomiums, by Pliny. See L. I.
Ep.x.-C.--though indeed who can speak like him?-
have a mind to be philosophers too. Consider first,
man, what the matter is, and what your own nature
is able to bear. If you would be a wrestler, consider
your shoulders, your back, your thighs; for different persons are made for different things. Do you
think that you can act as you do and be a philosopher; that you can eat, drink, be angry, be discontented, as you are now? You must watch, you must
labor, you must get the better of certain appetites;
must quit your acquaintances, be despised by your
servant, be laughed at by those you meet; come off
worse than others in everything, - in offices, in honors, before tribunals. When you have fully considered all these things, approach, if you please; if, by
parting with them, you have a mind to purchase serenity, freedom, and tranquillity. If not, do not come
hither; do not, like children, be now a philosopher,
then a publican, then an orator, and then one of
Caesar's officers. These things are not consistent.
You must be one man either good or bad. You
must cultivate either your own Reason or else externals; apply yourself either to things within or
without you; that is, be either a philosopher, or one
10f the mob.